In the week since Christmas Day, I’ve written and addressed most of my Christmas cards, packaged up and mailed off almost all my gifts, and prepared and baked several batches of cookies and fudge.

I had planned to do all of this before Christmas, of course. But what with one thing (traveling) and another (three separate colds in two months), it didn’t get done. So I’m doing it now. Better late than never, right?

Some of the baking had to be done twice, because I accidentally burnt two dozen cookies. I may or may not have cried a little bit about that. They were my favorite apricot cookies, the ones I only make at Christmas because they’re a pain in the behind to make. They are also really, really ridiculously good. Which is why I was willing to make them twice.

My mom helped me make the first batch. I basically ordered her to help me, because these cookies are so much easier to make with at least two people on the assembly line. Baking isn’t really her thing but she kindly helped anyway. (I didn’t really have to order her. I just said, “Pretty please?” and she said, “Of course!”) When the first sheet of cookies was out of the oven and cool enough to eat, I presented one to her to try. She took one bite and said, “Oh, wow, these are good!” I asked her if she understood now why I persist in making these annoying cookies every year. She laughed and agreed they were worth it.

And I did reward my mom for her help with Christmas cocoa. Last year I made hot cocoa for Annalie on Christmas Day topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. She remembered it for an entire year. A day or two after Christmas she announced that it was "time for Christmas cocoa, with whipped cream and sprinkles!"

My mom and dad went back to Nebraska a few days ago. It was really nice having them here for Christmas, but I know they were both ready to go home. My dad has traveled more in the last couple of months than he normally does in a year! He really is a homebody and we appreciate that he was willing to fly out here for Christmas. And even though my mom misses us when she’s not here, I know she was ready to go home and hug my brother and go to her own church and see and my cousins and their kids again. But while they were here, we enjoyed it.

We always open one present before bed on Christmas Eve. Annalie had it all planned out which present she wanted to open: the very first wrapped present that showed up under the tree. It was a Cabbage Patch Kid doll from my mom, with blonde hair and a pacifier just as Annalie requested, named Greta Deena. Annalie was thrilled. I was just glad she opened a present she could actually take to bed with her, since she opened it a few minutes before bedtime.

Annalie gave us all a little Christmas present by actually sleeping in the next morning till 8:30. When she got up, we let her look through her stocking and open one present right away. Playing with those presents kept her busy while the rest of us cleaned up the living room a little (so it would look pretty for photos later) and got ready for church.

Don’t we clean up nice?

I know not everyone goes to church on Christmas morning. Some churches we’ve belonged to over the years don’t even have a worship service on Christmas Day; they just do a candlelight service on Christmas Eve and figure that covers all the bases. I grew up going to church on Christmas morning though, and I like it. There have been times over the years when I’ve skipped Christmas-morning worship and I always miss it. Getting dressed up and putting off the present-opening frenzy till after we’ve prayed and sung Christmas songs and celebrated the Lord’s Supper in the bright morning light puts the holiday in perspective for me, makes it a truly holy day.

Then we go home and change back into our jammies before we rip into the presents.

I think it’s safe to say we were all happy with our gifts this year. Annalie made out like a bandit, only child and grandchild (on my side) that she is.

Troy loved the Nebraska plate that Annalie painted, of course. Annalie was so excited when he was opening it that she was dancing around and giggling. She did such a great job of keeping the secret for weeks!

I was pretty much spoiled this year too, mostly with photography equipment. My friend Joe sent me Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book, which he no doubt ascertained I needed after our camera class a few weeks ago. Troy gave me a really nice tripod (no more haphazard piles of DVD cases on boxes on stepstools on chairs for me!) as well as a flexible tripod for my point-and-shoot and a nifty pocket reference for the Nikon D40 that will slip right into my camera bag. I also scored a couple of lens protectors, a polarizing filter that I’ve yet to try out, and a new lens! The Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D is a really cool lens that lets you shoot in low light without a flash for some really technical reasons I sort of understand but couldn’t explain to you if you paid me. Just trust me when I say that it rocks. (There are a bunch of groups on Flickr dedicated solely to photos taken with this type of lens, if you want to see what it can do.)

I took this photo of Annalie with the 50mm lens. She got a little make-up compact in her stocking and made herself beautiful.

What’s the matter, Annalie? Are you tired of having your photo taken? Ah well, I can’t say I blame you. You were quite patient with us pointing cameras at you all day long. Before I wear out anyone else’s patience with my zillions of photos, I’ll end this post. I think there are a few more on my Flickr in the set Christmas 2008, if you can’t get enough. Just one more here, the Christmas card we sent out this year:

Thank you so much to all of you who have read, commented, and emailed in the past year! Even though I write with my family and friends in mind, all of you folks who live in my computer make this blogging thing extra fun. I hope this is the year you get into grad school…meet your true love…run a marathon…finally quit that job…paint a masterpiece…or whatever it is your heart desires. May 2009 be the year we all find out that we are capable of more than we ever imagined. Happy New Year!

My mom has a lot of godchildren. I’m probably going to get this number wrong, but I think she is godmother to something like 16 people. And five of my mom’s goddaughters are all in the same family! We’ll call them the Kay family, because all five girls (and the mom) have names starting with the letter K: Kaylea, Kelsea, Krista, Kailyn, and Kamree. Their parents, Kristi and Mike, are about my age.

The Kays not only go to the same church as my parents, they live right around the corner from them. Acting on the philosophy that you can never have too many grandparents, especially when there are five kids in your family, the Kays invite my parents to all the birthday parties and dance recitals. They occasionally call my parents and ask them to come over for an impromptu pizza-and-movie party. And my mom frequently invites the girls over for lunch during school breaks, or takes them out to a movie one or two girls at a time.

Since one of my mom’s favorite things to do is look at her many photo albums (I come by it naturally) and most kids love to look at pictures, over the years the Kay girls have looked at my mom’s photos a lot. Even though I had moved away from Omaha by the time the Kays joined my parents’ church, my mom would tell them all about me and my brother as they looked at photos, so the girls all felt as though they knew me pretty well, even though they had barely seen me in real life. And then I happened to live in Omaha for eight months (because of Troy being on deployment) not long after the Kays came around, so we all got to know each other.

After that, when I’d go home for a visit, I’d see the Kay family at church. Often my mom would plan an outing to the zoo or lunch at her house when I was there. I’ve always been a kid person in general, and the Kays are a fun family to be around, relaxed and happy in one another’s company. So I never minded tagging along as an extra adult on a Kay family field trip.

When Annalie was born, the Kay girls were quite interested in her. Kailyn had been born about a year before Annalie, so the older girls knew how exciting a new baby was. And they knew how excited my mom was for a grandbaby. Even before we took Annalie to Omaha for a visit, the Kay girls had all seen numerous photos of her and heard all about her from my mom.

So it didn’t surprise me when Krista came up to me as I was holding a three-month-old Annalie after church one Sunday we were in Omaha and asked, “So if you’re my godsister, what does that make Annalie to me?”

I had to think about it for a second, then told her, “I guess that would make Annalie your god-niece, and you would be her god-aunt. You and your sisters are all her god-aunts.”

Krista grinned, then went running off. “Hey, Kelsea! Kaylea! Did you know we’re AUNTS? We’re Annalie’s god-aunts!”

That was only the first of many such conversations I had with Krista, only after that they went more like this:

Kr: If you’re my godsister, what does that make me again?
B: Annalie’s god-aunt.
Kr: Right. And she’s my god-niece? And we’re all her god-aunts?
B: Right!

I’ve had this conversation with Krista approximately 37 times now. It’s like our little tradition.

Now that Annalie and Kailyn are 3 and 4 yeas old, they’re good buddies. Usually when we’re in town, Kailyn will sit in the pew with us at church and she and Annalie spend the hour busily drawing each other pictures and whispering with their heads close together. Then after the worship service, Annalie will skip off to Sunday school hand-in-hand with Kailyn.

When we were in Omaha for Rachel & Jeff’s wedding last month, we were fairly busy. We knew we wanted to do something with the Kays, but we didn’t know where we would fit it in. Luckily, they are laid-back and flexible, and we ended up going to lunch at a nearby Godfather’s Pizza with them after church the last day we were in town. Several other members of the church happened to be there for lunch too, and almost no one else was there. So we had the run of the place. The kids pretended to play video games and actually played pinball. Kelsea (who is such a sweetie) shared some of her birthday money with her sisters and Annalie so they could get a toy from one of the gumball machines. Kamree was passed around among her mom and her big sisters. And we actually got to sit and chat with Kristi, which happens too rarely.

It was a great way to end our visit. And with that, I have FINALLY finished all the photos from my month of traveling. Whew!

Our church’s preschool has a kid-sized bathroom—little toilet, low sink—that Annalie loves to use. She resists most of the time anyone suggests a trip to the bathroom, unless it’s a trip to the kids’ bathroom at church.

Sunday morning I took her to use the kids’ bathroom before church started. It happens to be in the part of the preschool that doubles as the nursery on Sunday mornings, so when we got in there Annalie forgot all about the bathroom and made a beeline for the babydolls. Melanie, one of the two teenagers on nursery duty, asked if I was dropping Annalie off. I said we were only there for the bathroom.

Kristine, the other teenager, informed us that the bathroom was occupied. “In fact,” she said, “he’s been in there a while.”

Kris went over to the bathroom door and knocked. “Jon, are you okay in there?” She opened the door to hear his response better, and we heard a muffled exclamation. She turned her head to inform Melanie and me that Jon had…uh…had an explosive bowel movement. She turned her head back to the opening and asked Jon if he had a tummyache? If he needed help?

Apparently he did need some help, because Kris turned back around and said, “Mel, get over here! He needs help!”

Melanie laughed and shook her head. “That’s not my job! Where did his mom go? She was here a minute ago.”

Kris replied, “I don’t know! It’s not my job either! Get over here!”

I am sure one of them would have helped Jon if I hadn’t been there, as they are both lovely people and great with kids. Since I was there, I mentally sighed and took pity on Melanie and Kristine, remembering well what my reaction to such a thing would have been when I was a childless 15-year-old. Somehow, once you’re a mom and you’ve wiped your own kid’s bottom for three (or four, or five) years (take heed, parents-to-be: your wiping duties do not end with potty-training), it’s hard to get worked up about wiping another kid’s bottom occasionally.

And it makes for a funny story.

*All names have been changed to protect the innocent. :-)